The use of speakers for mass audio notification has traditionally been achieved through self-contained, analogue systems. The speaker output is either driven in real-time by an announcer or by a pre-recorded message which may be automatically created by a computer system, manually recorded by the announcer, or both. These standalone speaker systems, while usually reliable for day-to-day operation, present a number of difficulties when an attempt is made to turn them into an integral part of a full mass audio notification system. These problems include: cumbersome maintenance due to the presence of two separated management and configuration systems, one for the digital notification system, and one for the standalone analogue system; lack of scalability since the analogue speakers are usually constrained to operate within a concentrated geographical area, under power-restricted budgets and cable-length limitations; limited selective notification options since the standalone systems only support “notify all speakers” or intercom-like operations; limited or non-existent centralized configuration options for speaker operation; and lack of intelligent, pro-active, reporting from the analogue speakers of their current states.
In addition, existing mass audio notification systems do not allow for batch configuration of several speakers.